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PROS

CONS

VERDICT

Terraria has not made the transition to iOS unscathed, but its cocktail of 2D crafting and exploration is still as engrossing as ever.

Full Review

App Store Info

Terraria has been a popular PC title since 2011, only making its way to consoles and iOS this year. Its brand of expansive exploration combined with creation and crafting abilities have has earned it the label "the 2D Minecraft”. As it's already well-established as an enjoyable craft-'em-up, our main concern was whether the game had made the leap to the App Store in one piece. The answer: mostly.

You start by customising your character's features and inhabiting one of three randomly generated worlds (or by playing the tutorial beforehand). You begin with a bronze sword, pickaxe, and axe to help you fend off monsters and gather resources, either by mining or by chopping down trees.

Your first order of business is to build a house by laying down either dirt or wood, building a door, and erecting a back wall (so creatures don't spawn in your home during the evenings). You'll also want to furnish it to attract non-player-characters to move in.

Your hotkey bar up the top of the screen is obviously a lot smaller than the PC version, with the iOS build allowing for only five quick-access items (with the option to switch to 10 in the options menu). To access your equipment and crafting screens, you need to tap the ellipses at the end of the bar.

Movement is controlled entirely with the left stick. It's a perfectly passable system, though it does make jumping a bit of a chore. Gathering resources and building structures is more of a headache than it needs to be, however. Obviously you don't have the precision that a mouse cursor provides. To compensate for this, a magnification box is brought up when you tap the screen so you fine tune which pixels you wish to effect.

This would be a great solution if you could magnify without having to affect the world, In practise, you end up tapping and holding in the general area you wish to interact with, and hoping you hit your target pixel first time.

If you' ve spent any time with the PC version, then the lack of multiplayer will probably grate a bit. However, despite some interface compromises the game has made the transition to touch screens largely intact. If you like a strong narrative and engaging story from your games, then you'd be wise to look elsewhere for your kicks. But, provided can see past the control niggles, Terraria on iOS does a reasonable job of putting the 2D playground in the palm of your hand.

Description

DIG! FIGHT! EXPLORE! BUILD! Join the community of millions of Terrarians!

“Terraria so damn engrossing. And it makes those comparisons to Minecraft seem a little half baked.” - Pocket Gamer

"This is the full version of Terraria, built from the ground up... If you loved it on PC or consoles, you’ll love it here.” - Slide To Play

“Terraria takes a different approach to a formula proven by Minecraft in perspective, combat, immersive-storytelling and – most importantly – moments of discovery.” - Touch Arcade

** iOS 8 and above is required. If you have an iPhone 4S or an iPad 2nd Gen, which both have less than 1GB of memory, you may experience performance issues if you create an Expanded World. **

In Terraria, every world is unique -- from the floating islands in the sky to the deepest level of The Underworld. Adventure to the ends of the earth, and battle villainous bosses along the way. The world is your canvas and action-packed, sandbox adventures are just a pickaxe swing away!

- MULTIPLAYER - Local WiFi games support up to 4 players cross-platform on any mobile device!

- 1360+ CRAFTING RECIPES - weapons, armor, potions, and more!

- 450+ ENEMIES!

- 100+ BLOCK TYPES to build anything you can imagine!

- 30+ PETS!

- 20+ BOSSES!

- Over a DOZEN environments to explore!

- Dynamic water & lava, day/night cycles!

- Create worlds as large as 4200 x 1200 tiles ("Small" worlds on PC)!

Every pixel of Terraria has been crafted for the BEST possible mobile experience!

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